Act now on climate change: US bishops to Congress

Published: 05 February 2007

It is time for the US to come together to address the moral, human and
environmental dimensions of global climate change, the head of the US
Catholic bishops' international policy committee says in a letter to
American legislators.

The
7 February letter by Bishop Thomas G Wenski of Orlando, Florida,
chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on
International Policy, calls on congressional leaders to resist special
interest group and instead focus on "common ground for common action to
advance the common good", Catholic Online reports.

"We
hope this will be a time for our nation to come together across
partisan, ideological and interest groups lines to address the moral,
human and environmental dimensions of this growing challenge that faces
all of humanity," Bishop Wenski said.

The letter arrived less
than a week after the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
issued a report that concluded global warming is "unequivocal", is very
likely - probability is more than 90 per cent - caused by human
emissions of greenhouse gases and will "continue for centuries".

It
also comes as lawmakers of the new Democratic-controlled Congress have
introduced more than 10 bills addressing global warming.

While
scientists have long warned about global warming, the issue was not
given as much attention as the Bush administration opposed mandatory
caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet last month, for the first time, the President addressed climate change in his State of the Union speech.

The
Orlando bishop urged the Congress to "focus on three central
priorities" - the poor, the pursuit of the common good and prudence.

Those
with the least and those with the most vulnerability in the US and
throughout the world will "have little or no voice in this vital
discussion", he said, noting that their needs and hardships are likely
to be ignored in favour of "more powerful forces".

"We all know
too well who is left behind and who pays the greatest price when
disaster, floods or droughts occur. The impact on poor communities and
nations require priority attention as proposals for action are shaped
and assessed," he said.

Rather than search for "economic,
political or other narrow advantage", the Congress, the bishop said,
has an obligation "to pass on the gift of God's creation to future
generations without doing irreversible harm".

Climate change has
also been a hotly debated topic in the Australian Parliament this week
with the Government saying that it is unwilling to "sacrifice the jobs
of coalminers in pursuit of some kind of knee-jerk reaction".
Meanwhile, the Opposition and green groups have accused the Government
of living in a state of denial.